An extremist, not a fanatic

October 22, 2005

How to succeed by doing nothing

It’s a cliché that David Cameron – Squit the Younger – has done nothing in his career. What’s not appreciated is that doing nothing can be the foundation for success.

There are (at least) two conditions in which this is true.

One is in cases where most performers fall consistently short of expectations. In such cases, someone who works averagely will be a disappointment. Someone who does less work will not be so disappointing and will therefore appear relatively good. As Denis Thatcher was fond of saying: “Better to say nothing and let people think you’re an idiot than open your mouth and prove it.”

In recent years, Tory politicians have fallen consistently short of expectations.

There are other examples. It’s well known that most fund managers under-perform the market. A fund manager who does nothing can therefore appear good relative to his rivals – because she’s less disappointing. The same is true in economic forecasting.

This explains the phenomenon of closet index tracking, and why economic forecasts cluster around the consensus. Why jeopardize your career and reputation by standing out?

It’s also the secret of success of “superwoman” Nicola Horlick. In taking maternity leave, she didn’t reveal her incompetence, whereas rival fund managers, working 12 months a year, did.

The other circumstance in which inactivity can be successful is when people’s Bayesian prior is that you’re really good. When people think you’re smart, you should do nothing. The conservatism bias will then entrench your reputation.

But how do you acquire a reputation for being good?

Some people have done it the hard way, by actually doing great work. They then became recluses, and the aura of mystery added to their reputation for genius: Syd Barrett, Thomas Pynchon and J.D. Salinger.

Squit the Younger did it the easy way, through simple spin and by doing averagely well in an activity – speech-making – in which his main rival is notoriously poor.

There’s a third class of cases. When I worked in the City, our firm would occasionally hire highly-rated analysts from bigger firms on huge money. These then did almost nothing for six months. They had a reputation for being good, so why – they figured – should they do anything to spoil it? The fact that their reputation was merely due to the luck of having worked for a large firm increased the importance of this strategy.

There is, of course, a big danger in doing nothing. You mustn’t appear lazy. There are many solutions to this: maternity leave, being young or cultivating an image of being a tortured genius (though this is a tougher one).

The most common solution, though, is just to moan and cuss about IT issues. You can hide behind this for months.

The most common solution, though, is just to moan and cuss about IT issues. You can hide behind this for months.

Yeah, we code-monkeys are always putting a spanner in the works ;-)

The best thing I've seen is the PRINCE2 (PRojects IN Controlled Environments) qualification in project management. This is a requirement if you intend to project manage any government IT project. You know - the ones that always come in late and over budget.

Great, I thought, something to add to my CV. Increase my promotional chances, aid my productivity, etc. So off I went to get the coursework.

The main body of this qualification teaches how to shirk responsibility by getting managers / directors / end users / to sign off on any number of potential problems and requirements they don't understand though a series of reports thus removing the project manager from any flack further down the line.